Televisualist: Tywin Lannister Is A #1 Seed

Each week, Torontoist examines the upcoming TV listings and makes note of programs that are entertaining, informative, and of quality. Or, alternately, none of those. The result: Televisualist.

Oh yeah, just look at him, exuding power and intelligence like that. No way does Tywin Lannister go the way of a Gonzaga or Georgetown! (No, we haven’t read the books—why are you looking at us like that?)

Monday

The Voice returns for its fourth season, minus Cee-Lo Green and Christina Aguilera, who are both taking a season off to do other things. Their fill-ins are Usher and Shakira, and hopefully neither of them will be bad. Other than that, it’s The Voice, so you know what you’re gonna get: a singing competition show with less bad “comedy” moments than American Idol and more overall talent. (CTV2, 8 p.m.)

PBS debuts 180 Days: A Year Inside An American High School, and because just any high school would not necessarily be a great documentary feature, the school in question is Washington Metropolitan High School, so the filmmakers can review the school-reform movement in depth and watch the requisite fighting young principal trying to improve the lives of her poor students. (9 p.m.)

Tuesday

The Simpsons rerun of the week: “C.E. D’Oh,” where Homer becomes CEO of the nuclear power plant by freeing the canary that Mr. Burns technically named owner of the plant. Interestingly, this is one of the few “d’oh”-themed Simpsons episode titles that doesn’t refer to the “d’oh” as “(Annoyed Grunt).” “Unlike Mr. Burns, I will respect you, the working-class slob, because we are all equals! And now, as I ascend this crystal staircase to my office, I say-avert your gaze!” (Comedy Network, 8:30 p.m.)

Wednesday

Hey, did you watch The Neighbors, ABC’s sitcom about aliens living among us? Neither did we. But it’s getting renewed. The moral of this story is that there are people out there who will watch things you don’t watch. Which, come to think, explains much of television. Isn’t it amazing when we apply these little life lessons to other areas of life? Try it and see! It’s an amazing thing, we promise. (8:30 p.m.)

The Real World: Portland is in Portland, Oregon. Not Portland, Maine. This is awfully important if you spend fifteen minutes trying to find amusing facts about Portland, Maine, for a TV-column-entry-factoid sort of a thing, and then have to give up because there is quite literally nothing interesting about Portland, Maine, and then you realize it’s actually set in Portland, Oregon, and you could have just spent three or four sentences doing cheap hipster jokes for easy applause. (MTV Canada, 10 p.m.)

Thursday

1600 Penn comes to an end this week, and, unlike The Neighbors, is likely not coming back. The second moral of this week, therefore, is that TV shows that get cancelled are cancelled because they did not have enough aliens in them. (NBC, 9:30 p.m.)

Friday

This week brings the season finale of Transporter: The Series, which stars Not Jason Statham as the Transporter. Every episode of this series is the same: the Transporter has a set of rules that he never breaks, because if you’re going to be a criminal for hire you have to have rules, and then he breaks the rules anyway because of Reasons and kicks people in the face and shoots them and stuff. This is either the worst show ever or the best show ever. We are undecided. (HBO Canada, 9 p.m.)

The Weekend

Regional finals for the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament, AKA “March Madness” are this weekend, and as of this writing a number of high seeds have already been knocked out of the tournament early, most notably South regional division number-two seed Georgetown, which was eliminated in the first round by number-15 Florida Gulf Coast University—which was appearing in the NCAA tournament for the first time. Meanwhile, over in the West regional division, the number-three, number-four, and number-five seeds were all eliminated in the first round, and number-one Gonzaga was eliminated in the second round, so there’s still plenty of competition for the Most Awesome Underdog Story prize this year. (CBS, beginning 4:20 p.m. Saturday and continuing through the weekend)

The Bible comes to an end, suspiciously without retelling the Book of Revelations. Maybe it’ll be a DVD extra or something? Who knows. (History Television, 8 p.m. Sunday)

OH YEAH MOTHERFUCKIN’ GAME OF THRONES SEASON THREE FUCK YEAH WITH DRAGONS AND MAGIC AND NAKED PEOPLE DOIN’ IT AND EVERYTHING! **extended metal riff on electric guitar** (HBO Canada, 9 p.m. Sunday)